Twitter is preparing to take the company public in 2014, and could already be worth as much as $11bn, according to a report by specialist financial researchers Greencrest.
The rough valuation of $11bn is based on trading in secondary markets, where shares unofficially trade hands privately. But a funding round in 2011 valued Twitter at $8bn, after which the value rose to $10bn on secondary markets before Facebook's shambolic IPO pushed the value back down to $9bn.
Greencrest analyst Max Wolff said Twitter's value has also been swollen by speculation that Apple is interested in acquiring the company. "Using the secondary market for shares to mark enterprise value is a very difficult and opaque process," he said.
"It is a rumour rich and special share class soup. That said, Twitter is up since the Facebook IPO and is now valued at northward of $11bn. This makes sense as growth in users and new monetisation efforts are both yielding fruit and pointing toward a good 2013 for Twitter."
Source: The Guardian
